Development of information society in Poland in the light of its accession to the European Union

Celem tego artykułu jest analiza procesu budowy społeczeństwa informacyjnego w Polsce na tle działań podejmowanych w Unii Europejskiej i na tle zaawansowania tego procesu w pozostałych krajach UE.The aim of this paper is to analyze the process of information society creation in Poland. A comparative analysis is made against other European Union countries. In the first part of the paper the EU actions in the field of information society creation are presented. Against this background such actions in Poland are discussed. In further work the statistical data concerning the use of ICT in Poland are analyzed, among companies and among households. And finally the situation in Poland is compared with other European Union countries. At the end the author presents some conclusions: - despite of increase in the use of ICT in Poland during last years, the level of development of information infrastructure and services is still lower in Poland than on average in the EU; - this gap is specially visible in the case of households with low income (relatively high percentage of households), in rural areas and in small towns; - the cost of Internet use and computer equipment are main barriers to the development of wider Internet access, however very important and alarming barrier is also low information consciousness among Polish society; - the poor use of European Union funds for information society creation can’t help Polish economy in reducing the gap between Poland and more advanced EU countries